The preparation of agar medium is a routine task in today’s laboratories. The typical workflow is to dissolve the components in a flask followed by sterilization in an autoclave. However, this procedure has several disadvantages.

First, the numerous working steps makes media preparation very time-consuming. Second, the sterilization temperature is usually controlled only in one single reference container, with the result that heat exposure may differ from sample to sample. Making things worse, the agar medium within the bottles cannot be stirred during the sterilization process – which otherwise would guarantee that it stays homogeneous. Lastly, it takes very long to cool the medium to dispensing temperatures and hence is exposed to a high temperature for a long time. As a result, the fertility of the agar medium might be impaired.

INTEGRA has designed a dedicated media sterilizer which eliminates these disadvantages. MEDIACLAVE allows for a much shorter process in which medium formulation and sterilization is carried out in one single step. The temperature of the agar medium is precisely monitored and controlled during the entire process. Permanent stirring guarantees homogenous temperature throughout the whole batch and an efficient plate heat exchanger facilitates rapid cooling. All these features prevent the medium from excessive heat exposure and thereby maintains its fertility.

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